Chapter 1.
When I was young, or to be more precise, during the childhood of my past life, my mother said to me, “Safety is important. Especially if it’s job safety.”
I would never forget those words even after I died. Especially since I’ve died once already and I still remember them.
The reason why I couldn’t forget those words was that they were the creed of my past life as well as my mother’s last will. It felt ludicrous and also enraging that my mother’s nagging words became her final will, but more than that, it came out as a big shock to the young me. Perhaps this was why, throughout my past life, I had lived with safety as a priority.
I graduated from university and passed the civil services exam which was known to be a stable career. Why didn’t I realize back then that we lived in a dangerous world?
I was on my way to the convenience store for beer and snacks to celebrate my success in the examination. One strong kiss with a truck that appeared out of nowhere and I woke up as a newborn baby.
Well, although it’s quite the run-of-the-mill story, it still had me wondering if I were the main character inside a fiction. After all, such ‘experiences’ were popular tropes of novels and cartoons. When I came to my senses, I was dumbfounded but also a bit worried. In stories such as this, it was quite common for the world to be underdeveloped and based inside a medieval aristocratic society. If you were not born of royalty or nobility, it was bound to be a miserable life ….
But in the end, I found myself more worried about my sensitive butt. No, it’s not a joke because my butt is really sensitive. If I do not use a bidet, it really hurts. Once, I even tried buying toilet paper that cost 1.5 times more from a supermarket, but it still hurt!
At least wet wipes were a little bit better … Forget wet wipes, it would be a relief if I could find toilet paper in this medieval period. Perhaps it was just needless worrying, but I did not find myself having to wipe with straws like how people did in the Joseon Dynasty. Rather, with a fantastic power called magic, it was possible to recreate a bidet.
It’s such a relief even as I think about it now.
Ah, I digressed there for a moment, but what I wanted to say was that my creed of safety from my past life continued on to my new life.
In the beginning, after reincarnating, I thought of letting go of my past life while imagining a future filled with adventures just like the main characters in fantasy novels. But that was also something of the past.
I will be turning 16 tomorrow. It is the age when the empire recognizes a teenager as an adult.
As such, I firmly set my heart and headed towards the village hall where my father, the head of the village, was residing.
-o-
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door of the room where my father was working.
Knock, knock!
I heard the scary voice of my father telling me to come in after I was done knocking. I took a gulp of saliva and opened the door.
My father was going through some documents, and had the appearance of a giant from the myths. Looking at the muscles that seemed as though they would burst through the lightly worn shirt, it felt like I was looking at the continent’s tallest mountain from the back hill of the village. The shirt area near the chest seemed especially perilous as if the buttons would pop out any minute.
“Oh Den, what are you doing here?”
My father flashed a bright smile as he called me by my nickname.
Born as the youngest of three sons and two daughters, I was especially loved by my father. It was also in part because I showed him much affection which even my sisters wouldn’t do often.
I took a small breath again and opened my mouth.
“Father, I will be sixteen tomorrow.”
“Oh yes. You’re already an adult now.”
As if my words made him feel nostalgic, my father spoke with sentimental eyes.
“I thought you would be a kid forever, but you’re an adult now. Come to think of it, your brothers also came to see me when they became adults. Hahaha.”
Looking at his face full of smiles as he reminisced about the past, I felt sorry. I wasn’t sure if this could continue on as a good memory.
If I simply said, ‘thank you for raising me all this time’, it would definitely continue to be one.
However, thinking about my eldest brother who swung an adamantium axe at my father after reaching adulthood, or my second brother who started brandishing a sword made of mithril, such filial piety did not exist.
“Haha, unlike my elder brothers, I have no intention of bringing disrespect by launching a sneak attack against you, Father.”
“Ho, really?”
After hearing my words, my father looked at me with eyes full of expectation.
The glint in my father's eyes gave me goosebumps. Those were clearly the eyes of a beast looking at its prey.
I was in trouble. It was clear that he thought I was thinking of challenging him. I suppressed the fear that I might be beaten to death by him.
How did I end up being born into a battle race that was so crazy about fighting …
Since my childhood, I lived a life with constant worry. When I was five, they made me go catch a monster as if it were as natural as a baby taking its first step. When I was eight, they sent me after members of the demon race, remnants of monsters that the demon king left behind when he came to invade the world. And at twelve, it was to defeat a dragon which even the demon race was said to avoid.
Thankfully, unlike novels or cartoons, these were monsters without intelligence. At this rate, it would be impossible to live with safety as the top priority in accordance with my life’s guiding tenet.
I firmly set my heart and said, “Father, I have a favor to ask.”
My father spoke as he gently flexed his body.
“Yes, what is it?”
He probably thought I was going to challenge him to a duel.
“I want to go to the capital.”
“Yes, we can try fighting … What?!”
I knew it! He thought I wanted to fight. So scary!
“Hahaha, it seems like my ears are turning deaf from age. I’m hearing strange talks of going to the capital.”
“You heard correctly. I want to go to the capital.”
My father stared at me with a blank face.
“Why? Is this a trip to celebrate your adulthood?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I want to settle and live there.”
As soon as I finished speaking, an unparalleled force with my father at its source erupted outwards.
“Hkkk!”
I resisted my father’s pressure by wrapping my arms around my face and ducking down, bracing at the possibility of death.
However, contrary to my thoughts, my father’s pressure gradually declined until it vanished as if it had never existed.
“Okay, let’s hear your reasoning. Why do you want to leave behind a fine home and settle in a foreign land?” he asked, with a face that said he really didn’t understand.
In my perspective, I wanted to leave a crazy village that made 5 years old catch monsters, no matter how weak those monsters were. Although I felt frustrated that no one understood my feelings, I spent my life so far without revealing my thoughts.
It’s natural for a person with two eyes to be considered an abnormality in a village populated by people with only one eye. Using the same logic, in a village suffused with people crazy for battles, it was inevitable that someone like me, who hated fighting, would be considered weird.
“There’s nothing for me to do here if I stay.” I directly made known what I had been thinking about for the last few days.
My father seemed perplexed.
“What are you talking about? Just do whatever you want. You know how to hunt, and since you’re strong and intelligent, you can do any kind of job you want.”
“How should I explain this? You know honor and satisfaction? I want to do something that makes me feel those kinds of things.”
Actually, I just wanted a safe job that brought in money without doing much work.
“If that’s the case, go work as a security guard. With your abilities, it won’t be long before you become the captain of the guards.”
The guard division was a place where only those who were the craziest about fighting in this village went to. It was the place that I wanted to avoid the most while living in this village.
“Father, Eldest Brother is already the captain of the guards here. To become the captain of the guards, I’ll have to fight him. I don’t want to fight with my family.”
“Your brother will enjoy it?”
“I don’t want to!”
My father stared at me with a confused face as I revealed my reluctance. A battle maniac like him wouldn’t understand. I sighed inwardly.
“Then go join the warrior force.”
Although the name warrior force sounded noteworthy, in reality, it was just a hunting group.
The village was surrounded by bizarre soil that allowed for the growth of a forest of unique trees. These trees could not be scratched without covering an axe with sword aura, so it was impossible to plow even one plot of land for farming. As a result, the village’s food supply was obtained either through hunting or by purchasing items from outside the village. The money for trading was obtained from selling by-products of the demons.
The warrior force was an important entity that handled half of the village’s food supply, but for someone who wished for a quiet and peaceful life, it was one of the worst places they could ever enter.
“Second Eldest Brother is currently the general there.”
My father was troubled when I said this. If it were up to me, I would have said, “Go help your brother by becoming the vice general or a deputy general manager.”
However, this was an impossible thought for a natural-born fighter such as my father. He had the mindset that one must always aim for the strongest position regardless of whether the opponent was a family member or an enemy.
“Then how about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?”
Although this sounded like a grand name only a country would use, in reality it was just a place where they brought monsters and by-products of demons to other cities to sell in exchange for food.
It may have sounded like a peaceful job on the surface, but for a village located in the middle of nowhere, it would take over ten days to reach another village. Considering that horses could not run in this wilderness, it was easy to assume that a ten-day distance by foot wasn’t as far as one might think. However, for people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no, for any strong adults living in this village, they could run incomparably fast.
To make a comparison, it was better to compare them with a car or a train than a living being. If you were to consider their otherworldly endurance as well, it was easy to realize that the distance to other villages was ridiculous. In addition, if you were to think of all the monsters and demons you would encounter on the way, entering the warrior force instead could potentially lead to a more peaceful life.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not really— ”
“Why? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the place that will provide you with the most support.”
Since no person other than a village member would set foot in this place, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held an important position in our village. That said, our village invested the most resources into them and it was the top location for me to enter if I were to consider the reasons I had given.
But I refused since the reason I wanted to leave for the capital wasn’t actually because I wanted to do something meaningful.
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